New diver spending 5 weeks in Indonesia...yeah!

[Indah]

Another leg of your trip of Bunaken combined with Lembeh might be a good choice? Bunaken is mostly walls which you would most likely enjoy. But Lembeh might not be up your alley. Lembeh is mostly about muck/macro critter diving. Some divers like me Love muck/macro others find it uninteresting. You might be following you guide and saying to yourself this looks like a barren boring bunch of black sand, and now he is showing me some tiny stupid critter i can hardly see. I would recommend watching some videos of Lembeh before you head there. In Lembeh other activities are limited as you are at a dive resort and generally isolated there, on Bunaken you can walk all over the island. If muck don't seem apealing it might be best to skip Bunaken/Lembeh and get yourself to Komodo.

I do not agree with this.The last 16 years we had many guests with very little dive experience which really fell in love with Lembeh Strait. I am sure that other resorts here have the same experience. These new divers liked it very much to see the seahorses and all other beautiful creatures at their own pace. Our style of diving (2 guests 1 guide) makes it extra comfortable. Totally different the drift dives within a large group.

 

[JRM-TX]

Hello Sebatien. At the end of the day, it's up to you to decide your interests and priorities. If you have zero interest in critters, maybe skip Lembeh. But if you are even a little bit interested in seeing weird, unique stuff, then highly recommend going to check it out. You'll see frogfish, mandarin fish, scorpion fish, rhinopias, pigmy sea horses, bubble anemones with orangutan crabs, nudibranchs, octopuses, etc etc. People say "muck" but it's not muddy or murky, the vis is generally fairly good. And there's more to Lembeh than macro shots on sandy bottoms. The dive spot "Nudi Falls" is one of my favorite places anywhere, visually so appealing.

There's an ok map of Lembeh dive sites at map of dive sites in Lembeh Strait in Northern Sulawesi (Zubi) Print version. Lembeh Strait is a big area with many dive sites and a variety of underwater environments, and it's famous for macro photography of strange critters.

You can check out some nice photos at Photo gallery or at Underwater Photo Location: Lembeh Strait

 

[dirtfarmer]

Another leg of your trip of Bunaken combined with Lembeh might be a good choice? Bunaken is mostly walls which you would most likely enjoy. But Lembeh might not be up your alley. Lembeh is mostly about muck/macro critter diving. Some divers like me Love muck/macro others find it uninteresting. You might be following you guide and saying to yourself this looks like a barren boring bunch of black sand, and now he is showing me some tiny stupid critter i can hardly see. I would recommend watching some videos of Lembeh before you head there. In Lembeh other activities are limited as you are at a dive resort and generally isolated there, on Bunaken you can walk all over the island. If muck don't seem apealing it might be best to skip Bunaken/Lembeh and get yourself to Komodo.

I do not agree with this.The last 16 years we had many guests with very little dive experience which really fell in love with Lembeh Strait. I am sure that other resorts here have the same experience. These new divers liked it very much to see the seahorses and all other beautiful creatures at their own pace. Our style of diving (2 guests 1 guide) makes it extra comfortable. Totally different the drift dives within a large group.

I LOVE Lembeh and have been there 3x, I'm not saying it's not incredible. I'm just telling the OP to check out some videos to see if it's his cup of tea.

 

[Centrals]

Lombok is only a short ferry away.
Three of us went to Lembeh to see what the fuss was all about and vowed never to return. And we all preferred Bunaken.

 

[Indah]

Hello Sebatien. At the end of the day, it's up to you to decide your interests and priorities. If you have zero interest in critters, maybe skip Lembeh. But if you are even a little bit interested in seeing weird, unique stuff, then highly recommend going to check it out. You'll see frogfish, mandarin fish, scorpion fish, rhinopias, pigmy sea horses, bubble anemones with orangutan crabs, nudibranchs, octopuses, etc etc. People say "muck" but it's not muddy or murky, the vis is generally fairly good. And there's more to Lembeh than macro shots on sandy bottoms. The dive spot "Nudi Falls" is one of my favorite places anywhere, visually so appealing.

There's an ok map of Lembeh dive sites at map of dive sites in Lembeh Strait in Northern Sulawesi (Zubi) Print version. Lembeh Strait is a big area with many dive sites and a variety of underwater environments, and it's famous for macro photography of strange critters.

You can check out some nice photos at Photo gallery or at Underwater Photo Location: Lembeh Strait

Did you see the new maps: Map of Lembeh Strait Dive Sites - Divers Lodge Lembeh - Lembeh Strait ?

 

[billt4sf]

Another leg of your trip of Bunaken combined with Lembeh might be a good choice? Bunaken is mostly walls which you would most likely enjoy. But Lembeh might not be up your alley. Lembeh is mostly about muck/macro critter diving. Some divers like me Love muck/macro others find it uninteresting. You might be following you guide and saying to yourself this looks like a barren boring bunch of black sand, and now he is showing me some tiny stupid critter i can hardly see. I would recommend watching some videos of Lembeh before you head there. In Lembeh other activities are limited as you are at a dive resort and generally isolated there, on Bunaken you can walk all over the island. If muck don't seem appealing it might be best to skip Bunaken/Lembeh and get yourself to Komodo.

I do not agree with this.

I *DO* agree with this. We had a week in Lembeh and we were bored out of our skulls. To encourage new divers to go there without understanding what it is is irresponsible IMHO. But I suppose anyone reading a post that says "We had many guests that enjoyed it" can read between the lines. When I was a new diver though, I had a tendency to believe operators that said things like this, I learned the hard way. Now I never believe anything an operator says unless I know them -- and even then I check it out.

To the OP, most of the action at Lembeh is tiny creatures on a sandy bottom - not colorful reefs. If your kicking is such that it stirs up the sand -- which it probably will -- you will not be the favorite dive buddy of the other guests, some of whom will spend the entire dive photographing one tiny creature in one place. The best things I saw from our days in Lembeh were on a computer screen.

By all means read and decide for yourself about Lembeh. It is very different from most diving!

- Bill

 

[billt4sf]

Sebastien,

You might want to consider spending some time at Geko Divers in Padang Bai. Reliable operator, notwithstanding my comments above. They can probably give you whatever courses you need. There is easy diving right next to them on bali, or they can take you to Nusa Penida as stated above.

Amed (a kind of large area) is also a good pace for new divers. Lots of calm areas there. However, it is closer to the volcano exclusion zone.

I would recommend that you have in mind that your flights in or out of Bali could be delayed by a day or two or three depending on what the volcano does and which way the wind is blowing. Best to build that contingency into your schedule. Bali is also a nice place to visit topside, depending on that you are looking for.

- Bill

 

[Indah]

I *DO* agree with this. We had a week in Lembeh and we were bored out of our skulls. To encourage new divers to go there without understanding what it is is irresponsible IMHO. But I suppose anyone reading a post that says "We had many guests that enjoyed it" can read between the lines. When I was a new diver though, I had a tendency to believe operators that said things like this, I learned the hard way. Now I never believe anything an operator says unless I know them -- and even then I check it out.

To the OP, most of the action at Lembeh is tiny creatures on a sandy bottom - not colorful reefs. If your kicking is such that it stirs up the sand -- which it probably will -- you will not be the favorite dive buddy of the other guests, some of whom will spend the entire dive photographing one tiny creature in one place. The best things I saw from our days in Lembeh were on a computer screen.

By all means read and decide for yourself about Lembeh. It is very different from most diving!

- Bill

We never had any new divers who did not like it to dive here. They loved it not to have to listen to command such as: jump now, otherwise you will miss the reef, stay with your group, whatever happens, be at the surface after 45 minutes sharp, be at the surface with not less than 50 bars, take good care there can be very scary down-currents here and more of things you do not want to hear of you just started to enjoy diving. And one of things they love most of all: not diving in a group. Just you, your buddy and the very experienced dive-guide. No other "experienced" divers pushing their cameras between them and the frog fish. By the way Bill, I never had a boring dive in my life. Actually, no boring day at all too

 

[Sebastien Major]

I am back! Thx everyone for the great advices again! Helped me a lot...

@JRM-TX : Thx for the info. I had the chance to do 2 drift dives in a river here in Canada and loved it! Maybe doing my drift diving speciality help to perfect my skills? Will be asking about currents and dive sites around that area thats for sure, always a good thing to do anyway. About Lembeh, will love seeing all those weird critters! Nudibranch are really my favorite of them all

@dirtfarmer : Liberty Wreck, Tulamben, Lembongan, it all looks awesome! Decided to skip the Gillies and Komodo though, did not want to loose to many days travelling and I have to make some decision at some points I saw a lot of videos of Lembeh and I already know it's right up my alley. I have been reefkeeping for 12 years and small critters is what I am looking for!

@billt4sf : I understand what you mean about lembeh. If people are looking for colorful reefs and school of fish, they might be disapointed lol. I know what I am getting into and pretty sure that I will love it. I will have more experience at that point in my trip so hopefully I won,t be kicking sand all over the place lol. It must be a unique experience to dive in these kind of habitat. Will also look into Geko Divers sinc I will start my trip around that area. What exactly is the volcano exclusion zone?

So... here's the plan so far, started to send a couple of emails for diving and accomodations :

Day 1-3 Flight Canada-Bali
Day 3-9 - Padang Bai or Ahmed, not sure yet...
Day 9-14 - Nusa Lembongan
Day 15 - Flight Bali-Manado
Day 15-22 - Bangka
Day 22-27 - Lembeh
Day 27-33 - Bunaken
Day 34 - Flight Manado-Bali
Day 35 - Flight Bali-Canada

Does that make any sense?

Thx again guys, you are helping a lot!

Cheers.

Sebastien.

 

[Centrals]

Is your visa in order to stay beyond 30 days?